For a bloke that was born and raised in Adelaide, Paul Kelly has snuck in through the back door of Melbourne to be claimed by the city as one of their most beloved and revered musical icons, much like an AFL footballer who has come from interstate to join a Victorian team. Just as Melbourne is the home of football, it is also the home of rock and roll. This time it’s not the underground venues around St Kilda and the inner city that hosts one of Australia’s most admired and revered singer songwriters tonight, it’s Rod Laver Arena, nestled in between the MCG, AAMI Park and the Nylex clock on the silo that he most famously sang about.
This tour marks the first Arena tour as a headliner in Australia and as his career approaches the 50 year mark he has gathered a mixed and varied following along the way. Having dabbled in musical genres spanning edgy rock, pop, reggae, bluegrass, country and the kind of storytelling through song that can’t be categorized, there was always going to be something for everyone in the setlist and there was certainly something for everyone in the lineup tonight.
Opener Fanny Lumsden, a guitarist/singer-songwriter backed by her band the Prawn Stars, got people up and moving with her brand of country rock pop as the crowd filed in. Nostalgic storytelling was definitely the theme of the night as she sung Land of Gold from her 2015 album Small Town Big Shot, about holidays in a pop top caravan, swiping juicy fruit gum from the tuck shop at the pool.
In the middle slot, serving as much more than a curtain raiser, was the revered and celebrated singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams originally from Lake Charles Louisiana and lately of Nashville Tennessee. Williams was stepping in for fellow modern Americana legend Jason Isbell, who pulled out of the tour and was no doubt a big drawcard for a few of the ticket holders.
Having released her memoir Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You and her 16th album Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart in 2023 despite having a stroke in 2020, this musical force delivered a magical set of songs that spanned her vast repertoire.
Backed by a superb band of Brady Blade on drums, Doug Pettibone and Mark Ford on guitars and David Sutton on bass Williams brought her A game. Opening with Rock and Roll Heart, and her tribute to Tom Petty, Stolen Moments the newer material sat well among crowd favourites Drunken Angel, her tribute to Blaze Foley, and the magnificent Joy from her Grammy award winning 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road that propelled her music to the masses. The Memphis Minnie inspired You Can’t Rule Me was introduced with some choice words on the current political climate in the USA with the lyrics and musical delivery giving weight to the sentiments expressed. Closing the set with a cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World had the crowd up and chanting the anthemic chorus along with her seeing most remaining on their feet to give Williams a standing ovation.
At 9pm on the knocker, Paul Kelly emerged and seated himself uncharacteristically at the keyboard for the opening song Houndstooth Dress from his latest and 28th studio album Fever Longing Still. Kelly for the most part, let his songs do the talking and storytelling with his between song banter augmenting them with extra threads from his 70 years of life experiences. A welcome to country and an introductory address advising that tonight he would be drawing from 40 years of music, a mix of old and new. Representing the old were his long time rhythm section of drummer Peter Luscombe and bassist Bill McDonald providing a solid backbone to the narrative. They first played with him in 1993 for the recording of Love Never Runs On Time, a song that was written in the same year that Seinfeld started on TV and as Kelly mused, much like the show, was a song about a bloke in a car with nothing much happening. Kelly’s droll sense of humour and his penchant for playing down his lyrical prowess is genuine as he trundles through the soundtrack of not only his life but probably most of the audience’s lives. The much anticipated recently penned sequel to How to Make Gravy, Rita Wrote a Letter highlighted the way Kelly can turn a song into a dramatization of family life and the complexities and personalities that come with it. The song was co- written by his nephew Dan Kelly who literally stood as his right hand man on guitar, mandolin and vocals. The classics were well represented with Before Too Long, From St Kilda to Kings Cross and Careless evoking feelings of nostalgia. Power pop guitar maestro Ash Naylor faithfully represented the iconic and melodic lines originally created by the late Steve Connolly and the familiar slide guitar peppered through How to Make Gravy as originally played by the late Spencer P Jones, both of whom Kelly paid respect and gratitude to as he reminisced.
The poignant When I First Met Your Ma and Deeper Water were highlights alongside the whimsy of Careless, the entire set being vocally augmented by Jess Hitchcock who, according to Kelly’s introduction, plays percussion like a demon and sings like an angel – he wasn’t kidding!
I wouldn’t ever have described the melancholy regret of If I Could Start Today Again from his 2001 Nothing But a Dream album a fight song but that’s what it became for some unruly punters on the fringes of the floor section. Kelly was oblivious to the kerfuffle as he earnestly delivered the lines and I’m pretty sure those people who were escorted out were wishing they could start their day again sans punches thrown.
Finishing the set with the historically important From Little Things Big Things Grow, a song he co-wrote with Kev Carmody about Vincent Lingiari’s fight for land rights for the Gurindji people. Everyone was on their feet as soon as the final note was played and relished the 5 song encore of Going to the River With Dad, from Fever Longing Still, the Melbourne favourite Leaps and Bounds, a bonus song in Darling It Hurts both from his breakthrough album with the Messengers Gossip and closing the night with his Stormwater Boys harmony laden Meet Me in the Middle of the Air. If the past 70 years of Australia were ever to be set to music, the powers that be would just have to pull up this show by Paul Kelly – no further action required.